Friday, May 14, 2010

Today was my last day of classes as an undergrad! Hooray, obviously, but also I know that I'll probably just be nostalgic about college for years to come. (Blah blah blah, right? On to the recipes.)

I just had a lovely quick lunch of pasta with zucchini and garlic and some basil and nutritional yeast, and it was so good I just had to write about it, even though I devoured it much to fast to take a picture. That's ok, you know what pasta looks like! Here's how I made it, in case you want to give it a try, but I didn't measure anything so be warned.

Pasta with Zucchini and Garlic

First, cook up a serving of pasta-I used some broad noodles that I found in the cupboard.In a skillet, heat enough extra virgin olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add one clove of sliced garlic, and 1/4 to 1/2 of a zucchini, slivered up into matchsticks. Stir over medium heat until the zucchini is tender. Add a little bit (maybe one ounce) of drained and crumbled extra-firm tofu. Add salt and black pepper to taste, and a generous sprinkle of nutritional yeast. Add the pasta and stir-fry for a minute until everything is combined. Add some chopped fresh basil and parsley. EAT!(I bet you could add some cherry tomatoes to that with delicious results, too.)

Here is a picture of the basil I just planted in the front yard of my house. I'm not sure if it will make it (it's not looking too healthy, unfortunately) but if it does, hopefully the students that live here next year will enjoy it!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Do you ever put a banana in your bag for later, and then forget about it until much later? And it's all mushy and weird?
And you kind of don't want it anymore?Well, today I found yesterday's banana and decided to make some muffins.

A note about this recipe: you might think it's a really bad idea to put vinegar in your muffins, but you are wrong! It helps to leaven them (with the baking soda) and it makes them tender and lovely.

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a muffin pan, and line with paper liners if you like. (They're optional here: these muffins are sturdy enough that you can bake them right in the pan if you want to.)
2. In a medium bowl, combine all the dry ingredients.3. In a large bowl, mash the banana with a fork.
4.In a small bowl, pour the cider vinegar into the soy milk and stir. Set aside for five minutes until the milk has curdled. This will look really really weird and gross, but it will be fine, trust me. After five minutes, add this all the remaining wet ingredients to the banana
and mix thoroughly.
5. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined. Do not overmix, or the muffins will be tough. It's ok to have a few small lumps, I promise!
It still won't look delicious, but have some patience!
6. Stir in the blueberries. If they are frozen, don't thaw them first, or it will turn your batter purple. Better to just let them thaw in the oven!
7. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan and bake for 18 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

8. Spoon glaze over the muffins while they're still warm in the muffin pan. Once they've cooled down a bit, you can leave them on a cooling rack or plate to cool the rest of the way.
Enjoy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. (Just kidding, really you should only enjoy them for breakfast and lunch.)